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LJ 75 

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1862 
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ND THE FALSE, 



OEATION, 



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CHARLES TRACY, Esq.; 



ALSO 



THE STARS AND STRIPES 

A POEM, 



Rev. CHARLES D. HELMER; 



PKONOl. N*,Ki> IjlluKh liiK 



PHT BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, 
YALE COLLEGE, JULY 30, 1862. 



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THE TRUE AND THE FALSE 
AN ORATION, 

7 

CHAELES TRACY, Esq.; 

¥® 

ALSO 

THE STARS AND STRIPES, 
A POEM, 

BY 

Rev. CHARLES D. HELMER; 

PKONOUKCED BEFORE TIJI 

I 

PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, 

YALE COLLEGE, JULY 30, 1862. 



PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY^:; ,, 
NEW HAVEN. ^ 

PRINTED BY E. HAYES, 426 CHAPEL ST. 
1862. 



LJ7S' 
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ORATION. 



The discovery and praise of truth, and the detection and 
reprobation of falsehood, form no small part of the work of 
men's minds in all stages of growth and all degrees of ac- 
tion. To know the true and to avoid being ensnared by 
the false is an instinctive impulse, which" nothing but a life 
in reverse of all virtue can deaden. Valuing upon this 
kindly tendency in the present hearers, let us attempt some 
tracings of the true and the false among things which press 
closely around us. 

In the representation of material objects and the arts of 
construction, truth is recognized as a main force, ruling the 
taste despite habit and authority. Should we daily pass a 
stately building, where the form, size and material challenge 
admiration, and often follow up with the eye a marble tower 
and steeple to the glittering top, never weary of the faultless 
and suggestive proportions, 3^et if one day it comes to light 
that somewhere up in the distance the marble ceases, and 
all above is joist and lath and plaster, painted to counterfeit 
the real, the charm of the pile has gone. It is in vain that 
the plasterer and the painter have cheated the eye : it is be- 
yond the power of fascination to make us satisfied with the 
false, where we looked for and trusted that we had the true. 
Nor will the notion of cost in labor or money, which some- 
times gives dignity to an indifferent result, avail where a 
deception is thus detected. If the plaster were made of 
diamond dust and calcined pearls, and at great price, truth 



4 

required that it should not pretend to be solid blocks from 
the quarry. An equestrian statue balancing on a high pe- 
destal does not offend the sense ; because it does not pretend 
to be a man and a horse, but merely an imitation of their 
form. If the bronze rider were habited in real cloth and 
tinted to the life like a wax figure, and the horse were en- 
cased in the skin and hair of the real beast, no one could 
bear the sight of them on a pedestal. The incongruity of 
a performance impossible in the hippodrome, would shock, 
and the apparent and imminent risk of such aerial eques- 
trianism would alarm. A picture in a frame, separated by it 
from the real objects around, and plainly telling that it 
represents, but is not, the landscape, the living group, the 
tossing sea, the gorgeous sunset, is no fraud. It belongs to 
the true. So a wooden building may be of a design grand 
and pretentious, or highly ornamented, yet so long as it 
gives no false token, but confesses the boards, it gains re- 
spect and yields pleasure. 

As the lack of the badges of the true cannot be supplied 
by the signs of costliness, so the littleness or absence of ex- 
pense does not impair the impression of the beautiful. An 
India shawl, wrought by fingers toiling through years and 
recording their owner's name in barbarian letters, may sell 
for many times as much as another shawl of the same size, 
material, pattern, color and quality, but manufactured swiftly 
in a French or Scotch loom. Is the one more handsome 
than the other ? -No. Will it wear or keep bright longer ? 
No. Why then is it preferred ? To break the secret, the 
fact that the one necessarily costs the most money and there- 
fore is most seldom owned, is an abundant reason for the 
decree of Fashion in its favor ; for the consideration of rela- 
tive beauty never prevailed a moon's length in her fickle 
court. Things which cost nothing at all are ever win- 
ning with their beauty ; flowers, trees, curved shores net- 
ted over with vines and resonant of bird music : where 
nothing is sham but all is true : coming to rich and poor 



alike: never impairing the resources of fertile nature, nor 
wearying the sense of her children. 

The pursuits of physical science have a strong gravitation 
towards truth. Beginning with numbers, and following the 
laws of form and space by steps of infallible accuracy, 
mathematics reveals to the student an invisible world where 
all is harmony and no false thing can exist. This has been 
likened to poetry ; but the mathematician's universe of form, 
proportion, space and quantity, standing up in its purity 
aloof from matter, and framed together into harmonious 
perfections, has attributes which the poet's ideal must ever 
lack. There is here no hazy outline between something 
and nothing, no mystic transformations, no startling coin- 
cidences, no doubt nor fear nor passion nor hazard; but 
everywhere truth, defined, finished, regnant, supreme. Next 
comes material philosophy, or physics, gathering facts 
widely, collating them largely, and reaching by induction 
to general principles or laws; — a process of patiently inquir- 
ing of nature until her rules are learned : a long and diligent 
watching for the grand truths which underlie phenomena 
and bind matter into one great unity, No sudden conclu- 
sions, no hasty generalizations from a scanty basis, no eager 
grasping at conjectural conclusions, can be tolerated here. 
The false in physics intrudes where brilliant haste takes 
the short cut ; the true, toiling the long road about, with 
many a careful step, finding not guessing its way, arrives, 
sooner or later, but surely, at the right terminus. Physics 
has her worst experience when she takes up hypothesis, and 
leaps over the hard places of the road, often coming down 
wide of the track and making for herself new labors. Crea- 
tion is old and vast. It is not the work of a day, or a life, 
or a generation, to master its constitution; and the wise 
physicist rejoices on his way both in the discoveries which 
open to his own sight and in the assurance that he is pre- 
paring for men unborn the means of attaining further re- 
sults of still higher interest. After science had revealed 



6 

the distant Uranus, invisible to the natural eye, a generation 
later found in that remote body some peculiarities of action 
wbicb almost took it out of the rigor of the planetary system, 
and led to a surmise that it might be the outer member of 
the solar group. Another generation of astronomers kept up 
their untiring work of observation, until it came to be seen 
that there must be another planet, farther off in space, to 
work those disturbances. The theoretical planet, as the sup- 
posed body was called, became a theme of discussion. At 
last a French mathematician, a solver of abstruse equations, 
by a course of severe analytical computation, a toil of cal- 
culation guided by genius, working upon the ascertained 
elements of the disturbances, determined the direction of 
that undiscovered body, gave to an observer the point to 
which he should aim his tube ; and behold Neptune was 
there. The observer with his telescope sounded the depths 
of space but an hour before he reached the planet. Think 
of the toil of many observers in the past gathering out of 
the great ab3^ss the facts, and think of Le Verrier in years of 
calculation, dealing with obstinate equations, and think of 
the entire certainty of the result which crowned all. So 
long, so slow, and yet so sure, is physical science when ad- 
hering closely to the true. 

Literature, as a pursuit, is more in peril of the false. It 
deals more with the drapery and integuments of things, bal- 
ances among words, wanders along the uncertain, the fanci- 
ful, the romantic, the colored, rather than grasps, like science, 
upon the very body of the real. History perhaps is the de- 
partment of letters most near to inductive science; yet it 
founds its conclusions on the testimony of witnesses who 
are dead and cannot be scrutinized by cross-examination, 
and who often speak with prejudice and argue rather than 
state the case. It has befallen a part of the reading world, 
after enjoying the history of Mexico and its first conquest, 
newl}^ enriched by a gifted American author, to find grave 
cause to doubt the general impression of the subject which 



has prevailed, and to suspect, at least, that contemporary 
falsehood and suppression greatly magnified the cities, the 
wealth, the people, and the events, and mingled the threads 
of ballad and legend and fiction in the web of history. Chro- 
nology itself, seemingly the most removed from such disad- 
vantages, involves a world of care and of nice allowances. 
The length of the human period, and the date of some 
great events still belong to the class of hard problems, and 
demand immense reading and thought. 

Go then to the other extreme of literature, and behold in 
romance and poetry how the true and the false rush in to- 
gether, and how the grandest, most stirring, most ennobling 
sentiments struggle ever against the tides of error and wrong. 
A poetic soul, with the glorious power of ideal fascination, 
should be always pure, wise, just, and devout, or the world 
bewildered will go astray. Happy for our day it is that so 
much of this sort of inspiration has fallen upon minds 
deeply imbued with virtue, humanity and faith, thus ren- 
dering the divine gift doubly a blessing to man. 

No species of composition is more common than what is 
called biography. From the brief line upon a tomb stone, 
the newspaper obituary notice, and the funeral sermon, 
through the series to the volumes of the complete life of the 
departed, it has its authors everywhere ; and they all have 
their temptations. De mortuis nil nisi honum, is their practi- 
cal maxim : a good and worthy rule within its right limits. 
Alas, there is not so great a mass of biased and unfair testi- 
mony in the rolls of the criminal courts as in the growing 
library of biography. The biographer of George Fourth 
hides his odious faults, exaggerates his meagre mind, and 
by a graceful pen bewilders the reader into reverence for a 
shallow, faithless creature, with no merit except superficial 
accomplishments and an inherited crown. In humbler names 
there are lives of men, not a few, who thus appear, printed 
and bound for perpetuity, in the glorious forms of virtue, 
culture and loveliness, without a shade of the qualities which 



8 

contemporaries saw and grieved over. How many a model 
of the books was sordid, grasping, sharp, trickish, self-seek- 
ing, or irritable, improvident and self-indulgent. On the 
canonization of a modern saint, it was remembered that one 
of his associates who knew him well had left his testimony, 
that " Vincent was a pleasant fellow, but had a bad habit 
of cheating at cards." Eead the record of one whose life is 
declared so perfect that he left not a blank to fill nor a blot 
to erase, and then, if you would know, go el?ewhere to ask 
of the practical men who had to meet him, and tried to 
manage his failings or avoid their encounter, whether they 
could not have suggested some improvements in his charac- 
ter. Was he not peevish, denunciatory, prejudiced, intoler- 
ant : could people love him strongly : did their esteem for 
his good qualities live by liberal allowances for his faults : 
was his heart cold : was his learning small and his diligence 
little : did he have a large field for usefulnes, and neglect 
its due cultivation? It is in vain to trust an average 
biographer for any such actual truth. Among the men 
of genius, whom we all recognize as the great, some had 
abominable habits, and did vast mischief by bad personal 
example. Will you find this in their printed lives ? 
Such a book should not be called a biography but a 
eulogy. The art of this species of authorship consists in 
ingenious selection, which goes through a man's life, choos- 
ing out the worthy acts, the good designs, the wise say- 
ings, and arranging them with skill, but studiously sup- 
pressing every defect or turning it into an excellence by 
friendly interpretation. It is an art which can pass to 
the annals of the age every party politician as a pure pat- 
riot who never plotted or intrigued, never took care of his 
own promotion ; every merchant as one who bought and 
sold almost without the thought of gain ; every manufac- 
turer as a great humanitarian, driven by unmingled benevo- 
lence to supply the needs and increase the comforts of his 
fellow men ; every scholar or professional, as an embodi- 



9 

ment of the thinking, the studious, the genial, the modest, 
the great. Why is this? The age has passed when au- 
thors feared the attack of ghosts and therefore flattered 
tliem. But there remains an influence of the living, the 
friends of the subject of eulogy. The biographer is not al- 
ways an indifferent stranger. He often looks on the sub- 
ject with a lover's eye, which smooths wrinkles and rounds 
angles. A generous impulse in a stranger leads him to men- 
tion the virtues rather than the errors of the dead. Con- 
science itself, sometimes reproving a child for past undu- 
tifalness, prompts to an easy atonement by exaggerated 
praise of a departed parent: — a thing not without loveli- 
ness in its interior spirit, but noxious in its influence work- 
ing externally. The discriminations among the living 
which justice draws, belong both to the proper rewards of 
goodness, and to the wholesome corrective forces of society ; 
and the embalming of good and bad alike, in the same fra- 
grance of biography, cheapens virtue and emboldens wrong. 
Sneering wit has coined the phrase "to lie like a tomb- 
stone:" a more humane but just vindication of the true 
demands that biographic art be held amenable, somewhere, 
to courageous criticism. Doubtless it is useful, indeed ne- 
cessary, that people should read of good examples, of wor- 
thy actions, of the heart's struggles, of the patient endu- 
rance of adversity ; and the effect is heightened by the em- 
bodiment of those noble things in a real life and name; 
but let not history turn into fiction. 

There is a species of writing where the good and bad, the 
grand and the little, of character, may be shown without 
restraint. The novelist, speaking at a distance of time or 
disguising by names and surroundings, can portray an actual 
character with entire fidelity. Strange, that to find a delin- 
eation of the man as he really was, one should turn away 
from the entitled registers of truth to labelled romances. 
Compare what comes in proper biography, concerning cer- 
tain personages, with what you see of them in such a book 
2 



10 

as ' The Minister's Wooing.' For a true and full notion of 
tlie character of the minister or the soldier, no one would 
send an inquirer to biographies rather than to that novel. 
Other examples could be given where a whole character 
goes forth a true lesson to the world, while quite recent, the 
disguises of a judicious pen preventing the personal appli- 
cation which might offend surviving friends. 

The great delusions of our age, mormonism and spirit- 
ualism, both indigenous in the United States, so familar as 
to be dropped from the list of current topics, cannot be 
passed, in the tracings of the true and the false, without 
some attention. As a general rule there is no controlling 
and abiding error which does not arise from a damaged 
truth. The power of the erroneous idea actually springs 
from the elements and fragments of truth which it has 
appropriated and retaind. The energy of Mohamedan- 
ism, and its power to continue for centuries, came from 
certain grand ideas which it stole from the true faith and 
wickedly devoted to its false devices. The superstitions of 
the East which hold out longest, have recognized and used 
certain sublime truths. Mere falsehood, without aid from 
weighty truth, is a light force and soon fails. It is remark- 
able that the two delusions specified have followed one an- 
other at so short an interval, and have existed contempora- 
neously so long, and yet both have gathered converts so 
widely. The two never interfered with each other ; mor- 
monism losing nothing from its existing hordes or its steady 
accessions by the rise of spiritualism, and the latter never 
being diminished by desertions to the dominion of Deseret. 
The class which Smith and Young have drawn together 
and thus far ruled firmly, will bear a general description. 
They are coarse, low-minded, impressible, and with reli- 
gious capacity enough to feed fanaticism but rarely warming 
into any .ecstacy of devotion. From whatever tribe or clime 
they come, this is their style. A scholar, a poet, a physicist, 
an artist, a gentleman, can never spring from such a level. 



11 

Persuasive talkers, artful intriguers, shrewd traffickers, and 
perhaps sullen and unflincliing soldiers, may not be want- 
ing: — the latter a chance which our nation should think of, 
as this strange mass rolls on and grows. The true of mor- 
monism is its acceptance of some doctrines of the holy scrip- 
tures, enough to give the stock of mormon lies quite too 
many probabilities of lasting. The false of this system is 
most gross, and transparently absurd : — a story of supernat- 
ural revelations proved by affidavits taken before a justice 
of the peace, beginning "Wayne County, to wit;" and new 
chapters of the same sort furnished by the prophet as the 
crisis demands, attested by nothing but the word of the 
chief and the quick amens of his obedient followers. 

Spiritualism, allowing the name it has wrongfully as- 
sumed, has its proper class of subjects. These are persons 
of distorted mind. Some smitten with natural obliquity, 
intellectual or moral, which often carries them off to the 
left when grappling with a matter requiring close thought ; 
— a defect belonging more or less to an unsound nervous 
system : — others who have experienced a secondary distor- 
tion, by false and partial education. Smatterers in particu- 
lar departments of learning with no foundation in its ele- 
ments, ever seeking the new, strange, or extreme in scien- 
tific hypotheses, (a cloudy region which the well-balanced, 
safely educated, sober mind avoids), the quacks in medicine, 
the charlatans in philosophy, the progressive skeptics who 
never land in the dogmatic region of settled unbelief, nor 
turn back to the right way, but doubt on, excited, fluttering 
and timid : through all their lesser varieties they conform 
to the one general class of distorted and abnormal minds. 
The true of spiritualism, where is it? Happily for the 
future, this thing rests wholly on the false. It stands for no 
truth at all ; except it admits a life after death, which no 
human tribe has forgotten, and which truth it degrades, belit- 
tles, and ruins. The whole catalogue of its pretended phe- 
nomena is a series of juggleries. The legion of the golden 



12 

book of mormon is not a barer lie than the whole stock of 
authorities — the rappings, writings, visions, voices and pos- 
sessions — of spiritualism. Totally without any essential 
alliance with the true, it cannot maintain a long existence; 
and already, in its first decade, it is vanishing away. Great 
have been its mischiefs, but chiefly in its influence on char- 
acter. A reliable witness, who has encountered most of the 
chiefs of this movement, makes a sad report of their gener- 
ally impaired veracity. While mormonism further imbrutes 
a sluggish soul, spiritualism seizes upon a distorted mind 
and works fell mischief in both intellectual and moral char- 
acter. The one clinging to some fragments of truth's 
wreck, floats on and may have a future : the other without a 
plank of the good old ship to sustain it, must sink speedily 
and forever. 

Grovernment, the familiar theme, open in every way to 
discussion, and universally treated by hands of every degree 
of skill, has come now to be subjected, among us, to fresh 
scrutiny. Our system, apparently complete in its general 
principles, has advanced, like every living thing, through a 
progress of growth, developing its greater and lesser limbs, 
and sometimes putting forth branches which the good of the 
tree makes it needful to prune away, if the shadows of rank 
vegetation do not first make them wither and disappear. 
The prevailing tendency has been towards greater popular- 
ization of authority. Starting from the maxim tlaat all gov- 
erning power resides in the mass of the people, some have 
come to the conclusion that the briefer the term of office, 
and the more direct the action of the mass in naming its 
agents, the more true and safe the administration. Numbers 
being king, the seekers of the royal favor have yielded to 
this drifting of the public sense, not venturing to question 
the popular infallibility. A statesman once tried to put off 
compliance with the royal behest of the majority, gracefully 
intimating that the decree was hasty, and asking for " the 
sober second thought of the people;" and although, like a 



13 

court flatterer, lie declared that such sober second thought of 
the people was " never wrong and always efficient," he lost 
favor forever. The prevalent assent to this debateable view 
of government, has been owing not only to the personal 
desire of ambitious men to keep right with the current, 
but also to an accepted exaggeration of the revolutionary 
principle, that governments derive their just power from the 
consent of the governed. The declaration of independence 
was the act of a nation, the people of a continent, setting 
up a government of their own ; and the passage referred to 
w^as meant to utter forth that people's right of erecting their 
own polity, and to proclaim the reasons why thej'' dissolved 
the bands which had held them to another state ; and not to 
vent the doctrine of an arbitrary democracy, which might 
change its will with the wind, and yet that will be supreme 
and dominant. In times of quiet, in the oratory of Congress 
where there was no grave trial of statesmanship, amid de- 
bates of niere abstractions, doubtless some to whom we all 
now confide the greatest interests, have said what the an- 
archists of to-day may quote as sanctioning the principles of 
secession ; but practical necessities of state, — the real and 
earnest life of a nation with its terrible trials, — lead to a 
sounder notion. Tiiere is a divine right in government. 
Tlie chances of birth, or the chances of elections, may give 
the ruler his place ; but when seated there, his exercise of 
authority, his doing right to his friends and enemies, within 
the nation and abroad, his legislation, his administering of 
law, his rendering of justice, his regulation of the things 
that pertain to industry, trade, property, and order, belong 
to a higher title than a descent from king or noble, or a cer- 
tified plurality of ballots. With us, he comes in by prefer- 
ences of the people ; but he rules jure divino. Hence a 
government once established cannot be assailed for small 
cause. It cannot be disrupted by malcontents, as mere mat- 
ter of will, but only for causes grave and just, heavy griev- 
ances long borne and become unendurable, so that a solemn 



14 

duty "denounces a separation." It would be a low and 
unworthy view of our resistance of secession, should we try 
to stand on the ground of holding the states to their bar- 
gain, and exacting the performance of the bond, or on the 
ground of our own will to retain them and our ample power 
to enforce that will. This goverument is not a mere com- 
mercial partnership, nor a social club, nor a mutual benefit 
lodge. It is the established ministry of our nationality ; a 
nationality founded by a supreme hand, shaped by the long 
process of preparation, matured by chosen trials, cherished 
by the profusion of prosperity ; throughout the period from 
the first occupation of these coasts by settlers down to the 
day we take our present lessons, the touch of that mighty 
hand being always manifest. From copartnerships, clubs or 
lodges, individual members may withdraw, and the joint 
concern thus maybe dissolved; but what God has joined 
together let not man put asunder. 

This solid doctrine of the divine right of government has 
suffered temporary obscuration from an unlimited devotion 
to paper constitutions. The British constitution, as it is 
called, consists of a series of restrictions on the power of the 
crown. Magna charta, the Bill of Eights, and the like, were 
encroachments upon the powers of an existing absolute gov- 
ernment : they never were the foundation or affirmative 
basis of that government's right or power. But an Ameri- 
can constitution founds a government and professes to give 
it specified powers. It is the difference between negative 
and positive treatment. The English charters took away 
from absolutism ; the American charters bestow powers 
upon government. Such is the theory. Hence our internal 
debates have turned so much on the interpretation of our 
charters ; and constitutional law has grown into a depart- 
ment of learning, throughout which the notion has been 
generally current, that government has no power but such 
as it can make out by a paper title. The piping times of 
peace have favored this narrow view of the subject. But 



15 

national peril and pressing exigency, in the face of armed 
rebellion, taught the country, that there were powers of 
government not written on parchment, but belongiDg to 
it essentially and of divine right. Arming, borrowing, 
arresting, imprisoning, became necessary to be done, and 
done promptly; and in many cases without the least warrant 
of written law or constitution, and in breach of solemn 
judicial precedent those very things were bravely done. 
Some show of argument was put forth, at times, to make 
these acts square with the paper-vouched rights of govern- 
ment ; but the verity of the matter is that the conduct of 
public affairs, necessary in the crisis, was sometimes without 
the sanction, and sometimes in contravention of the written 
constitution. The vindication of what was done should 
never be put on any narrow ground. The nation had, and 
must have, a natural right to exist, to maintain itself, to de- 
feat its enemies, to suppress treason. It had a necessary 
right to judge of the best means for its self-preservation, 
including, if need be, the establishment of its Bastile. In 
all our reverence for the eminent wisdom of the men who 
framed our paper constitution, we need not impute to them 
an infinite foresight of every possible conjuncture of affairs, 
nor deny that they left out some things in grants of power, 
or inserted some things in the restrictions and limitations, 
with imperfect ideas of possible contingencies ; but the gov- 
ernment when in being, installed as the ruler and protector 
of a great people, by its very nature holds every authority 
and power which it needs for maintaining its existence, and 
conserving the nationality of which it has charge. The 
controversy between strict construction and loose construc- 
tion, does not reach this point. The nation's power of self- 
preservation comes not of conventions, or delegations, or 
resolutions, or ratifications, but of divine right. Some may 
shrink from this position ; and accustomed to extol the ad- 
vantages of having a written constitution, and of adhering 
to it alwaj^s, may fail to see how state department warrants, 



16 

unexplained arrests, and detentions in Fort Lafayette and 
Fort Warren, can be other than nsurpations, tending to fatal 
mischief. Conservatism, of one sort, consists merely in saving 
the written constitution from infraction. A true conservatism 
is that which saves the state from destruction. When the 
brave and worthy acts of our government, in its direct pro- 
ceedings to conserve the nation, shall come to be canvassed 
in legal tribunals, and those who have taken part in the vig- 
orous measures which written charters did not sanction, 
shall be arraigned as culprits, then shall we see whether 
Courts can rise to the perception of the divine right of gov- 
ernment, or must ever feel for a sinuous and scant}'' footpath 
along the margins of grammatical authority. That will be 
the test whether the true or the false shall prevail. 

It is well, it is best, it is needful, to have a written con- 
stitution, and to describe and fix, as far as possible, in that 
written symbol of power, the prerogatives of a supreme 
government ; and the constitution of the United States is 
the most eminent example of such an instrument. Yet that 
charter was a human production, and not exempt from the 
liability to error which belongs to every aggregate work of 
man ; and wdien that paper document fails to give, or speaks 
to deny, an attribute of government which must exist; 
which is indispensable, inevitable, inalienable ; the govern- 
ment takes such attribute of divine right and holds it firmly. 
Therefore let no one be troubled by demonstrations that the 
government has no warrant by paper constitution to coerce a 
state into submission to federal authority, or to acquire new 
territory, or to take a neighboring republic into the Union, 
or to exercise supreme power over the people within the ter- 
ritories. These are necessary attributions of our national life, 
and must exist whether granted or denied by the words of 
the charter. With such a view of the perfection of our nation 
the duty of loyalty to its government, fidelity to its unity, 
and subserviency of individual opinion and will to its high 
claims, takes the rank of a religious obligation binding the 
conscience to the ordinances of heaven. 



17 

From the consideration of government t"he transition is 
short to party politics. Here we reach a field where the 
true is hard to find, and the false flourishes like the bay. 
Whatever may be said in favor of parties abroad, where 
they represent controversies about the policy of administra- 
tion, or parties in past periods of our country, when gov- 
ernmental policy was the real and the sole ground of divi- 
sion, we now are where party means a selfish league to get 
offices and emoluments, and politics, as a term in present 
use, refers less to the art of statesmanship than to the sys- 
tem of management of crafty aspirants. Those stupendous 
frauds, the platforms of parties, still appear at intervals ; but 
nothing could be more erroneous than to suppose the man- 
agers of the party to be acting upon the principles of the 
published scheme. The leaders in such affairs, with unim- 
portant exceptions, seize upon state questions as matter of 
capital to use in the business of attracting together a majority 
in support of their candidates. The immediate object of a 
party, in their view, is not to establish a doctrine or defeat 
a measure, but to elect a ticket; and the permanent object 
is to hold the power of nomination and election for the 
future. Multitudes, not of the managing class, sustain a 
party as the exponent of some state doctrine, such as free 
trade, or protection, or any of the theories concerning 
slavery ; but these are not the politicians. They are the 
innocent victims of managers, who cunningly put into party 
symbols such doctrines, from time to time, as seem likely 
to catch votes. It would not be agreeable, nor admissible 
now, to name party men nor point out examples of party 
contrivance ; but those who carefully look within the ma- 
chinery and watch the workings of these combinations, 
without participating in any of the designs, behold an ex- 
hibition of depravity, falsehood and hypocrisy, which not 
only stirs indignation, but causes an anxious forecasting of 
our country's future. It is undeniable that every party which 
has appeared in these later years, whether boasting of its 
3 



18 

antiquity or of its fresh newness, whether claiming favor as 
a champion of good old ways or as a reformer of ancient 
abuses, has presented some fair show of principles ; but the 
selection, arrangement and embodying of the particular prin- 
ciples for the time held forth, has been, in the main, the cool 
study of mere gamesters, choosing one side or the other of 
the question as they thought it would win voters ; and the 
ardor, the ring of a conscientious spirit, which always marks 
the proclamation, is totally hollow. Principles touching 
closely upon humanity itself, have been slipped in and slip- 
ped out of a party creed at short intervals, while the organ- 
ization itself kept right on with the same boast of exclusive 
public virtue ; and the land is sprinkled over with politicians 
who have transmigrated from party to party, impelled by no 
change of opinion, but following merely the prospect of 
personal advancement. To those who abide outside of these 
combinations, and disown all party allegiance, it is wonder- 
ful to see the multitudes of sincere and earnest men, in pri- 
vate life, themselves free from personal ambition, ensnared, 
caught, and led by one party or another, and unconsciously 
becoming active supporters of the insincere, self-seeking, 
and crafty. When a party chief, as his friends were about 
entering into power, privately cautioned them that no party 
upon attaining a victory could afford to redeem the pledges 
it made before the election, and they might find excuses 
for not fulfilling their public promises, but be sure not to 
think of actually performing them, it was only a frank 
utterance of one of the Machiavelian secrets of his order. 
A thing so wrong cannot fail to bear evil fruits. Look 
at the style in which every party berates every other. 
Eidicule, sneer, charges of fraud, imputation of disloyalty, 
intimations of the grossest corruption, mark the outpourings 
in party addresses and convention resolutions. Malice, 
sarcasm, and scandal grow imder such influences. A spirit 
bordering on fanaticism springs up, which it requires the 
humanizing course of business, the quiet teachings of social 



19 

contact, the bonds of common sorrows, and the hopes of a 
common faith, to restrain and allay. 

But it is gravely said that parties are necessary. Some 
daily and weekly oracles have so pronounced: — quite in 
their sphere as devoted and rewarded agents of party. I 
deny the whole proposition. Parties, as they are made and 
used, if rightly appreciated, are neither necessary nor useful 
nor worthy of favor. If, in an election, you have a prefer- 
ence for a candidate, in view of his personal character or 
his opinions on state questions, what help of party do you 
want to enable you to -cast your ballot accordingly ? Take 
the greatest national movement of this generation, the pres- 
ent struggle to preserve our nationality and overthrow 
anarchy and rebellion : have we wanted any party organiza- 
tion to help the work ? Have the boasted virtues of party 
given any aid? On the contrary, the spirit of the nation 
has risen sublime and thrust aside these distrusted organiza- 
tions ; and the period of noblest popular action, our very 
highest public development, has been marked by a suppres- ^ 
sion of party almost complete. The incorrigible gaming 
men of every clique, from time to time, cautiously, lift a 
faint voice ; but their words look only to a future when the 
war being over their time for spoliation may return, and 
their present total lack of following warns them back into 
their conclaves. Yet in the midst of war, with all its de- 
mands, and all its sacrifices, and all its endurances, men 
affecting patriotism have been found who could cheat the 
government of its money; and it is remarkable that these 
plunderers have come mainly from the class of managing 
politicians of the several parties. 

Doubtless the mechanism of party politics does sometimes 
put the right man in the right place ; but then it gives him 
no freedom to do the right thing. The officer is made to feel 
that he is in for the benefit of the party, that he owes his 
elevation to the managers, that he must help them or nobody 
will help him, that his reelection is in their hands ; in short, 



20 

the power that gave him place, tempts to use it contrary to 
the broad views which a right minded man should carry 
into office. Thus the growing tendency of parties, in their 
workings for a period of some years prior to the present 
war, was to give power to intriguers, to divide the people 
into hostile bands, and to deprave the common conscience 
of the country. 

The attempts of reformers to make party less a tyranny 
and fraud, by various appliances, always fail. A general 
attendance on primary meetings was one of the proposed 
remedies ; but these assemblages proved to have been pre- 
ceded by smaller ante-primary caucuses of the managers ; 
and the worthy citizen found himself at a primary meeting 
performing the secondary part of consenting to the arrange- 
ment, which was prepared, beyond his power of amendment, 
by the previous decree of a cabal. In the testing of this 
hour, party politics must be cast out as false. 

Our country for one year and more has borne the burden 
-of t1ie world. The only spot of the earth's surface, where 
popular government has its free abode and maintains a great 
power, the land of hope to the oppressed of distant nations, 
has been visited by an attempt at anarchy. This gigantic 
wrong against the nation and against mankind, calling to 
its aid false philosophy, false doctrines of society, and brutal 
capacity of hate, has shown a front of horrible determina- 
tion. It is the great type of the false. But the true has 
risen majestically for its overthrow. A land of peaceful 
arts has armed a million of men and taught them the 
trade of war. The wealth of a prosperous people has been 
advanced promptly when wanted. The endless resources of 
mechanic art have been turned to the common cause. The 
sacred ministry has blest the devoted bands. Women wor- 
thy of eternal memory, have given their sons to the perils of 
war, and have wrought at home with tireless fingers to pro- 
vide for the wounded and the sick, bearing saint-like the 
bereavements of many deaths. At last we are one people, 



21 

a nation doubly consolidated, having a common and sure 
hope of a glorious result. These times not only have de- 
veloped unknown virtues in those whose record was good 
before, but have awakened patriotic feeling and inspired 
noble zeal for the country in not a few whose past career 
had given little promise of such things. 

Beyond our boundaries we had enjoyed an apparent 
friendship, and had generously reciprocated what seemed to 
be a sincere kindness of other powers ; but the deep seated 
aversion to our government of the people, and the jealousy 
of such a power rising rapidly into the circle of the masters 
of the world, long lurking among the ruling classes of mon- 
archical and aristocratic states, only wanted an occasion for 
unfriendly manifestation. To break this country into frag- 
ments, two or more, was the mission of the rebellion ; and 
those false friends took joy at the prospect. The rebellion 
also courted and won their sympathy, by proposing to fix 
upon its confederation a permanent law of caste, dep:rading 
labor and exalting patrician power. Soon came the grand 
effort of humanity, the strife to maintain the dignity of in- 
dustry ; and all that was peculiar to America, as the vindi- 
cator of human equality, the protector of the humble indi- 
vidual, the asserter of freedom, stirred the great heart of 
our people to an arousing without a parallel. The capacity 
of the loyal states to send forth armed hosts by land and 
sea, and to raise at home immense subsidies, has amazed the 
world. The end is not doubtful. When every acre of our 
dominion is reclaimed, and order is restored in all the 
bounds of the union, with no impairment of our popular 
form of government and no check on the refuge open for all 
seeking the land of the free, our country will stand abso- 
lutely at the head of nations, as the first military power of 
the earth. The true and the false come in contact at every 
stage of this contest; but truth is mighty and must prevail. 

The pure love of the true, — the deep personal adhesion 
to truth itself, — has had its examples^ its suffering witnesses, 



22 

in many departmeTits of man's pursuits. Let one instance 
be mentioned, so humble that an apology perhaps might be 
required for its introduction. A pauper child, an emigrant 
from a foreign land, an orphan boy taken from an alms- 
house to live in the family of a small farmer in the west, 
was required by his foster parents to deny the truth of a 
thing he had told to another : — a true statement of a fact. 
The child refusing to admit the thing to be false which he 
had spoken truly, was beaten by this man. The little .vic- 
tim, tied in a loft, was whipped by the cruel husband, under 
the influence of the wife who exhorted to the severity, mean- 
while being assured, at intervals, that on making the false 
denial he would be instantly relieved. The pure soul of 
the boy clung to the truth; and he suffered on, while the 
blood trickled down his limbs and dropped through the 
loose floor. Pauses there were in this punishment, but the 
rod came again. At last, when a cold chill seized his naked 
body, and death, the deliverer, approached, the poor child, 
unbound, sank upon his tormentor's neck, and articulated 
with his last breath — "I could not tell a lie." Oh what a 
soul rose then to its welcome in the skies ! Let grown men 
debate the question whether falsehood may not be justified 
in extremities. Let casuistry show how that child might 
have found justification, in the love of an innocent life just 
begun, or in the horror of occasioning a murder b}^ his per- 
sistency, for some equivocation or mere false confession. 
Happily he had not learned such ethics. His lot, as a waif 
of the race, cast about the world, and ending his brief pil- 
grimage in the place where he suffered all, had opened to 
him none of those metaphysical ways of vindicating the 
false. His mission was to die a martyr to the true. 

The yearly gatherings at this venerated seat of learning 
befit our theme. Early associations and unfading impres- 
sions of the past, cheer while they sober the spirit. If there 
is any place preeminently fit for the bold tracing of the true 
and the false, it is here, amid these groves of faithful teach- 
ing, and around these fountains of knowledge. 



POEM. 



By Rbv. CHARLES D. HELMER, 



THE STARS AND STRIPES. 



1. The Flag of the New World. 

2. The Flag of Independence. 

3. The Flag of the Republic. 

4. The Flag of the Union and Constitution, 

5. The Flag of Battle. 

6. The Flag of Peace. 

7. The Flag of Freedom. 

8. The Flag of our Country. 



Forsake to-daj the soft and tender reeds 
Of peace : the thunder-peals of mighty deeds 
In battle drown the silver lute : 
We will not hear the velvet flute 
And silken strings : let them be mute. 



^iD'- 



No time is this for moonlight seranades 
Or songs of nightingales in evening shades : 
The war-steeds neigh, 
The trumpets bray, 
Our Dahlgreens, Parrotts and Columbiads pour 
Their echoing thunders forth from shore to shore. 
On every hill, by every stream. 
Our banners wave, our bayonets gleam : 
4 



26 

And far tlarougli odorous groves, in marshy damps, 
Behold the fluttering canvass of our camps ; 
Where vahant regiments and brave brigades 

Their solid columns wheel, 

Full-armed with loyal steel, 

While ever and anon, 

As press our armies on, 
The furious hoof of battle stamps 
In streams of blood, on heaps of broken blades. 

We had a Banner once — we have it yet ; 

A flag, our children never can forget ; 

A flag, whose stars ascend — but do not set. 

We hold it for a sacred truth, 

That Grod this banner gave us ; 
When in our country's tender youth 

He raised up men to save us, 
Who, striking down a tyrant's hand, 
Outflung this ensign o'er our land. 

Above us still it waves ; 

And shall above our graves, 
K we are faithful to our Grod and those 
Who flung it earliest in the face of foes, 
When rose, in blood, our nation's morning sun, 
And threw a halo round our Washington. 

It is not old — and yet men call it so 

To-day— the dear Old Flag ! 

Because a mutinous rag, 

That drips the filth of Treason, 

Disgusts the air a season : 
A loyal curse upon it ! time will show 
The Devil's handiwork that all may know. 



27 

All hail, tlie glorious clustering Stars ! 
All hail, the Stripes ! those glowing bars 
That stream resplendent on the air ; 
Our Country's Banner — honored everywhere. 

No Crown upon its radiant folds ; 
No throne of King your eye beholds ; 
No hungry bird of prey 
To snatch your rights away ; 
No lion, raging to devour ; 
No slimy serpent, coiled in power : 
But only Freedom's Constellation bright, 
Outstreaming in exhaustless beams of light. 



I. 



THE FLAG OF THE NEW WORLD. 

Behold this Starry Banner thus unfurled, 
And floating proudly o'er this Western world : 
It streams nndimmed amid Atlantic spray. 
And glows where evening shuts the gates of day 
Upon the far Pacific coast ; and wide 
Its realm from Northern Lakes to Mexic tide. 
No conquering nation brought it o'er the sea, 
Borne westward in the hands of Tyranny ; 
Devised and wrought, with sentiment sublime, 
In Europe, Afric, or some Asian clime : 
But here, upon this Continent unstained 
By footprints of the Despot unrestrained. 
This Banner's course of glory was begun. 
Blending the Evening Star and morning sun 
In beams harmonious and in orbit one. 



28 
II. 

THE FLAG OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Away with that standard with fire for its light ! 
St. George and St. Andrew their Crosses unite, 
To follow the old British Lion in fight ; 
But the stars of the sky descend from their courses, 
And, bright on our ensign, lead onward our forces. 
Shall millions of men, whom the Highest made free, 
Submit to a monster of cruelty, groan 
Overburdened and crushed by a merciless throne. 
That flings its dread shadow far over the sea ? 
ISTever 1 our lives and our fortunes cry, never ! 
The bands that have bound us we dare to dissever. 
Let nations be judges and God be our shield, 
No tyrant can conquer, no freeman can yield — 
We swear Independence, for ever and ever. 
Then up with our Banner, bespangled with Stars ! 
Unfurl it defiant to Tyranny's crew ; 
Jehovah of Battles descends as our Mars, 
And makes his pavilion of Eed, White and Blue. 
Athwart the Atlantic no Monarch shall dare 
His sceptre extend, here to multiply slaves ; 
The ocean is freedom, and never will bear 
The transports of tyranny o'er its free waves. 
Behold, how the billows are ceaselessly broken 
In impotent foam on our bulwark of rocks ; 
And take this, ye Despots, a free people's token 
Of power, to resist your proud armament's shocks. 
Athwart the Atlantic no Standard shall come, 
To wave o'er our armies, to float o'er our domes; 
Our arms thus to palsy, our hearts to benumb, 
And shielding the insolence dared in our homes : 
But down from the sun we will pluck threads of fire, 
To weave one broad Stripe ; and another, as white 



29 

As the snow that falls on the North's icy spire, 
Shall blend with the sky on our Banner of Light. 
Let this be the Flag of the uprising nation, 
The flag of a people rejecting their King : 
Fling out to the world the sublime Declaration, 
And o'er it the Flag of the Kingless outfling. 

III. 

THE FLAG OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Across the sea of nations the gales 
Of Empire blow, and westward waft 
The fleets of Power with swelling sails — 
A navy of commingled craft. 

The keels are built of Monarchs' thrones : 
A sceptre for the bow, a crown 
The stern ; and launched amid the groans 
Of millions, free, to sail — or drown. 

Their masts are one, or two, or three. 
That grew through centuries of time ; 
They are Might and Gold and Tyranny, 
With shrouds of cruelty and crime. 

The decks are trod by Noblemen; 

The holds are full of gasping slaves: 

There's glory for the Upper-men, 

But shame grows darker toward the waves. 

Aloft the hateful pennons shake. 
The flags that Despots long have borne ; 
Beneath, the hearts of bondmen break — ■ 
Their hopes of freedom quenched with scorn. 



30 

But lo ! a ship, new-launched, appears ; 
Of model beautiful, unique : 
JSTot drawn from Time's remembered years, 
Not seen by Eoman eye or Grreek. 

Its keel is Liberty ; its masts 
Are Justice, Truth, Humanity ; 
Its banner in the varying blasts 
The Starry Ensign of the free. 

Amid the floating Thrones it sails — 
The New Eepublic's Ship of State ; 
The heavens vouchsafe their fairest gales, ' 
While fatal storms their rage abate. 

To mast-head Grod himself has nailed 
The Stars and Stripes, aloft to gleam 
The Cynosure of nations, hailed 
With rapture — Man's prophetic dream. 

Not all the tyrants of the world 
That stellar Banner down can tear ; 
Jehovah hath its Stripes unfurled, 
And set His Stars in glory there. 

Advanced, the New Eepublic's mast 
Shall bear this standard of the free : 
The foremost empires shall be last ; 
The flag of Freedom rule the sea. 

IV. 

THE FLAG OF THE UNION AND CONSTITUTION. 

O Hand divine ! that made the worlds on high, 
That grouped the Constellations of the sky 

In union permanent: 
With self-same power thou didst the stars create, 
That form the Constellation of the State, 

Upon the Nation's firmament. 



31 

There were but thirteen then, when first they shone 
In dawning glory over Freedom's throne — 

A civic Constellation ; 
But star by star they came, from far and near, 
Together drawn, from brighter year to year, 

By Freedom's gravitation. 

And ever, as they rise amid the years, 
Eesounds the music of these civic spheres 

Along the wilderness : 
Now blended into one, shine Thirty-Four, 
While Freedom's melody attracts still more — 

There never shall be less. 

Though waves on waves rebellious rage and rise, 
Dashing their quenching fury on the skies 

In mad Secession, 
In God we trust ! no star shall fall from heaven ; 
The dome of Union never shall be riven 

By the Treason of Oppression. 

Eebellion lifts from Hell its snaky head, 
And shakes its horrid locks, with ruin red, 

Behind the Traitor's rag : 
It flouts the Constitution, dares the might 
Of loyal millions, arming for the fight 

Beneath the Union's flag. 

The storm is wild ; the tempests sweep and roar ; 
The darkening billows rush on every shore 

In fury and affright : 
But through the gloom the Flag of Union gleams ; 
No clouds of battle quench its starry beams, 

That wide illume the night. 

Now banners wave as thick on all the air 
As forest leaves, while armies everywhere 
Eespond to war's alarms ; 



X 



32 

And loud as thunders bursting from the cloud, 
Than whirlwinds or tempestuous seas more loud, 
The rush of men to arms ! 

The guns that poured on Sumpter's sacred walls 
A storm of traitorous fire, with shells and balls, 

Against a faithful band, 
Were like Archangels' trumpets, to awake 
The slumbering nation and with fury break 

The silence of the land. 

The Union and the Constitution call 

For vengeance and defense ; their banner's fall 

Is crying from the dust : 
Let traitors tremble ere they stamp again 
In hate upon our flag ; for loyal men 

Uplift it will and must. 

By all the suffering of ancestral times ; 
By all the glory of these blended climes ; 

The Union sworn to cherish ! 
Wave, Loyal men, your-starlit banner wave, 
And sweep the hordes of Treason to their grave — 

Let every Traitor perish ! 

V. 

THE FLAG OF BATTLE. 

Where rolls in clouds the battle-smoke ; 
Where sabres flash with lightning-stroke ; 
Where bursting shell and shrieking ball 
On reeling columns mangling fall ; 
Where horse and rider, overthrown, 
In dying pangs together groan ; 
Where gush the streams of patriot gore ; 
And clouds repeat the cannon's roar ; 
The Stars and Stripes, uplifted there, 
Unroll their glory on the air. 



33 

The Flag of Battle— let it float I 
The eye in death shall on it gloat, 
When, on some memorable day, 
The soldier's life slow ebbs away 
At sacred wounds upon his breast — 
The gates of his eternal rest. 
Beneath its folds he left his home ; 
Beneath it glory 's mountain clomb ; 
And now within this winding sheet 
He sleeps in peace at Grod's own feet. 

There's wailing in the cottage door I 

The widow's son returns no more ; 

For Country — honored mother dear ! 

Has called the patriot volunteer. 

He marched to victor}?- or death ; 

He hails his flag with dying breath ; 

And while his comrades onward press, 

In battle's fierce and mighty stress, 

He gazes, with dim eye, afar. 

And counts once more each sacred Star, 

That glimmers through the darkening fight ; 

And watches still the Eed and White, 

Till death with darkness veils his sight. 

Oh, banner of the fallen brave, 

Forever in thy splendor wave ! 

Oh, banner of the patriots dead, 

Thy glory on their memory shed ! 

Oh, banner of the Martyrs slain, 

Eain honor, with a golden rain ! 

There's many a grave on earth's round breast ; 

There's many a place where heroes rest, 

By hostile hands in battle slain ; 

There's many a glory -gilded plain ; 

5 



84 

There's many a flag by men admired, 
And death. Ambition has desired : 
But no such spot as that where sleeps 
Our patriotic dead, where keeps 
Eternal watch a nation's eye, 
And ne'er permits their fame to die. 

There's no such plain as that, whose flowers 

Have drunk the blood that poured in showers 

From patriotic veins, that gave 

Their lives, their country's life to save. 

There's no such banner as that one. 

Which from the fountains of the sun 

Its folds with glory fills, and, bright 

With Liberty's celestial light, 

Streams through the darkness of the strife, 

Where a nation struggles for its life. 

' Tis long since first the sword was drawn : 
What man remembers War's red dawn ? 
The years have many been and dire. 
Through which has flashed the sabre's fire ; 
And under many a banner's shade 
Has reddened deep the warrior's blade : 
But never was the sword more keen 
And bright than with the starry sheen, 
That from our flag of Stripes and Stars 
Illumes the sacred steel of Mars. 

The cloud of war is dark with wrath ; 
A rain of blood shall mark its path ; 
Its awful gloom no sunbeams break ; 
Beneath its shadow nations quake : 
But where this Flag in splendor flies 
A rain-bow spans the battle's skies ; 



35 

It rides sublime the clouds of war, 
Like Victory's triumphal car. 

Already thrice since first it rose — 

A splendid menace to our foes, 

Its Stars have lit the battle plain, 

And led triumphant each campaign. 

Unfurled in virgin beauty fair 

On Saratoga's lurid air, 

From field to field its glory flew, 

And in its train fresh conquests drew ; 

Till down on Yorktown's conquered height 

It flung the trophies of its might. 

And then above the conflict's roar 
Its star-lit wings were spread once more, 
Shaking its pinions of blue and gold, 
Till splendor streamed from every fold. 
It gave New Orleans the victor's hand, 
And drove the Briton from the land. 

Thence onward through the years it goes — 

The flag of conquest o'er its foes ; 

O'er Buena Yista, Monterey, 

And Cerro Gordo, on its way 

To Montezuma's ancient halls, 

To float in triumph o'er their walls, 

And write, in lines of fadeless gold. 

The name of Scott on every fold. 

So streams through battle-storm and smoke, 
So gleams above the sabre-stroke, 
This star-lit flag of victory. 
Upon the land and on the sea. 
Where'er our army's hosts have passed ; 
On every war-ship's towering mast ; 



86 

On field and mountain, lake and sea, 
It waves the flag of victory. 
Its brave defenders ne'er liave quailed, 
Nor have its Stars in dust been trailed, 
Before its foes ; but proud and fair 
Its stainless folds adorn the air, 
Eespect compelling everywhere. 

Alas ! alas ! the Muse is wrong : 
Rebellion's curse disturbs her song. 
For, now, it must with shame be told 
How Treason has defiled the gold 
And glorj^, that our flag illume : 
It has become our latest doom 
To see this banner stained and spurned 
By sons, to fiendish traitors turned ; 
To see the proudest flag on earth 
Begrimed by men of kindred birth 
With us, whose noble sires were one. 
Who love a common Washington. 



'&' 



Behold it, loyal countrymen ! 
A sight we would not see again ! 
And by the sword of Freedom, now 
In vengeance drawn, record the vow ; 
That such dishonor shall not go 
Unpunished, if a nation's woe 
Hath vials filled with ruin red. 
To pour on Treason's guilty head. 

The storm of war has burst once more 
The world repeats the deafening roar ; 
A nation lifts its mighty hand, 
To sweep Rebellion from the land. 
This last campaign shall yet outweigh 
The rest in glory, and display 



87 

Its crowns of victories sublime — 
Proud trophies for all corning time : 
Our Flag of Battle yet shall wave 
O'er every Traitor's loathsome grave. 

VI. 

THE FLAG OF PEACE. 

But not amid the gloom of war alone 

Our banner-spangling Stars have brighly shone — 

The Flag of Peace as well ; 

Whose light, enkindling, fell 
On Art, Invention, Learning, up the way 
Of human progress toward the world's millennial day. 

Its beams have guided Labor to its toil, 
Have cheered the genial culture of the soil ; 

The Sailor's starless chart, 

The studios of Art, 
The halls of science, and commercial spheres. 
This banner has illumed and guarded through its years. 

Upon our mountains, fluttering in the breeze — 
A light-house, flashing beams athwart the seas, 

To guide the nations o'er 

The deep to Freedom's shore — 
The Stars and Stripes, the heralds of success, 
Have beckoned millions westward to the wilderness. 

And while the hosts of Europe's fleeing poor 

Came crowding through the New World's golden door, 

The wilderness began 

To blossom wide for Man, 
And cities, like the work of magic, sprang 
Along its wastes, where Labor's noisy echoes rang. 



88 

The Peasant, gazing with enchanted eyes 
Upon this Banner in the Western skies, 

Sees hope in every fold, 

Wealth in each star of gold, 
And feels a manh blood flowing in each vein. 
And grasps, with joy, his speeding fortune's golden rein. 

The Grod of Eaces has uplifted thus 
This standard for the nations — as for us — 

Upon this hemisphere, 

To gather peoples here ; 
And give the poor, oppressed and spurned, a place 
Beneath the sun, with hope to run life's weary race. 

The sea, that with incessant billows beats 
Its shores, forever floats the busy fleets 

Of Commerce round the globe ; 

While Peace, with shining robe, 
Walks every deck and waves her starry sign, 
And bids the nations prosper in her sway benign. 

Behold ! amid the pinnacles of ice 

In Arctic realms our banner's bright device. 

Borne farther toward the Pole, 

Where waves forget to roll 
In icy sleep, than any flag unfurled 
By Christian hands through all the regions of the world. 

From North to South, from East to West, 
On every land the foot of man has pressed, 

In heat extreme or cold, 

This flag has been unrolled, 
Displaying Peace, with all her bounteous stores. 
And pouring light and life upon war-wasted shores. 



89 

Upon this far, sequestered, Continent 
Did Peace her open Temple build, intent 

To hold a glorious reign — 

Beneficent to men, 
Upon a bloodless, olive-shaded throne, 
Beneath her star-lit Banner to the winds outthrown. 

Then on her throne and on her Banner smiled 
The God of Peace benignant, pleased and mild ; 

And from His open hand 

Poured treasures on her land 
Munificent, in ceaseless golden showers, 
As sunbeams pour their floods upon meridian hours. 

Oh ! Flag of harvests, vineyards, streams and mines, 
Floating o'er valleys, prairies, hills of pines. 

Thou star -crowned Flag of Peace ! 

Let War's fierce tumults cease, 
And, wave thou, radiant down succeeding time, 
Till flames the Banner of the Cross in every clime. 

VII. 

THE FLAG OF FREEDOM. 

Lift again the Starry Banner, 

Let the nation feast its eyes ; 
Lift aloft the Flag of Freedom, 

Glowing on its native skies. 

Wave it gladly, wave it proudly ! 

No such standard gilds the air : 
Look, ye nations tyrant- ridden. 

Let the sight dissolve despair. 

Ye who dread despotic sceptres, 
Ye who crouch before the thrones, 

Pause and gaze upon this vision ! 
Pause and hush your patriot groans. 



40 



Sweetest of all earthly music 
Is the song that Freedom sings ; 

Sounding on its way of battles, 
O'er the sea of Time it rings. 

Through the dark and dreary dungeons 
"Where Oppression smites its chains, 

Like the hymns of coming angels, 
Eoll the echoes of its strains. 

Lo! a bright and long procession. 
Marching down the track of days, 

Singing as they come still nearer, 
"Waving banners all ablaze. 

It is Freedom's army, marching 
To the music of their souls ; 

And the Standard they are bearing 
Shows the Stars upon its folds. 

Like the Brazen Serpent, lifted 

In the wilderness, of old, 
Nations, by Oppression bitten. 

Freedom in this flag behold. 

As tbe cloud and fire-like pillar 
Went before the chosen ones. 

So this Striped and Starry Banner 
Leads the hosts of Freedom's sons. 

Hence the hate of angry despots. 
Like the flames of hell's own fire, 

Leaps aloft in conflagrations, 
With a fierce infernal ire. 



41 



But, though earth itself were blazing, 
Not a flame could strike the stars ; 

So the hottest rage of tyrants 
Ne'er can reach these sacred Bars. 

High above their fiercest fury, 
On the sky of Freedom spread, 

Shall this flag of living glory 
Wave above earth's tyrants dead. 

Bearing high this star-lit standard 

Eolls the car of liberty ; 
Wide athwart these Western regions 

Flash its wheels in victory. 

Only ensign of man's freedom 
Under all the shining sun ; 

Who shall shame us, if we love it 
For the deeds already done ? 

Dare we here our conscience utter ? 

Are our voices in our laws ? 
Do our rulers crush or serve us ? 

Ask this Banner for the cause. 

Other flags interpret empire ; 

Some the pride of rank enshrine : 
This alone is Freedom's emblem — 

Charter of man's rights divine. 

Wave it, then, before the nations ; 

Let the light that from it falls 
Scatter all the gloom of Bondage, 

Flashing day-spring o'er its walls. 
6 



42 

As the icy bands of winter, 

That the singing streams restrain, 

Melt beneath the sun of summer, 
Let this Flag dissolve each chain. 

Let the hard and galling fetters, 
That have blood upon their links, 

By its magic break asunder, 

While the sun of Slavery sinks. 

Oh ! the guilt too long already 

Has been lying on our souls, 
That a Eace, by millions numbered. 

Has no name on Freedom's scrolls. 

Shall the eyes of White men only. 
Looking on our Stripes and Stars, 

In them see a free-man's glory, 
While the Black see prison bars ? 

Or has God his freedom given 

Only to the strong and great? 
If not, let these bonds be riven : 

Speak the word — Emancipate ! 

For no human eye should ever 

Look upon our Banner's face, 
Without seeing in each color 

Liberty for all the race. 

Flag with justice, flag with freedom. 

Blazing on each splendid fold, 
Speak them from each White and Ked stripe, 

Flash them from each Star of gold. 



43 

And while Traitors boldly venture 
On our freedom's grave to frame 

Slavery's empire, wide extending, 
Bury them in death and shame. 

Strike ! ye soldiers of the Union ; 

Let your war be freedom's cause ; 
Let the sword grow red and redder — 

Never, till triumphant, pause. 

Oh ! remember all the Martyrs 
Sleeping in their bloody shrouds ; 

Think of all the noble spirits 
Gazing on you from the clouds. 

See the hands of mighty heroes, 
That have borne this standard high, 

Borne it through the storm of battle — 
Stretching toward you from the sky. 

Hear, from out the Past and Future, 
Voices full of hope and cheer; 

" Bear it ! bear it ! bear it ! upward, 
Into freedom's loftiest sphere." 

Flag of Freedom ! flag of glory I 

Flag of all Humanity ! 
Lead the van of marching nations; 

Wave ! the ensign of the free. 



44 

VIII. 

THE FLAG OF OUR COUNTRY. 

Mj country ! country still, tliough deeply gashed 
With bleeding wounds — by traitors made ; 

Yes country still, thou art, though, rudely dashed, 

Thy cup of peace, upon whose brim once flashed 
The gems of glory, now is laid 

All empty in the dusty battle's shade. 

My bleeding country ! once so free and proud ; 

So beautiful among the nations then, 

Eesplendent in the light of liberty ; 

Now darkened by the fearful cloud 

Of war and shaken by the tread of men 

To battle rushing vengefully ; 
Oh ! country, God to Baptism calleth thee. 

Thou art the country of the free ; 

Thy God is consecrating thee. 
And now, once more, the Font of blood is brought ; 
Behold the crimson emblem. Oh, how red ! 
Jehovah pours it on thy sacred head. 
This holy service is not done for nought ; 
Prepare thee for the labor to be wrought. 

And, now, the sacred Flag He dips ; 
The Stars and Stripes He plunges deep 
Beneath the surface, thence to lift 
The consecrated banner up the steep 
Of War's wild heights : and lo ! it drips 
The blood of heroes, while pale lips 
Still whisper to it through the swift 
And angry clouds of battle, as they sweep 
Athwart the fields, with here and there a bloody rift. 



45 

Oh ! consecrated country, rise I 
Uplift thy sacred banner to the skies : 

Go forth to fight ; 

Defend the right ; 
For twice ten millions of the bravest brave 
Will gladly fill for thee a bloody grave. 

Oh! consecrated banner, wave ! 
Above this land without a slave ; 

When freedom's risen sun 

Beholds her mission done. 
And bright athwart America her light 
Pursues the shadows of Oppression's night. 

We have a country still ; 

That country has a right to live : 

Let those forsake its cause who will, 
There are the chosen ones, whom God will give 

The glory of defending it ; 
Whose names shall cover pillars bright and high, 
Whose fame shall be as lasting as the sky, 

While years are wide extending it. 

Our country has a Banner too. 
Of heaven's own stars and heaven's own blue. 

And streams of light combined: — 

That flag is in our hearts enshrined. 

Our country's banner, God defend its stars 

In sacred Union blent ! 
Our country's hopes, our nation's life, 
Are one with it ; through all the whirls and jars 
Of civil discord and rebellious strife. 

Let not one shining fold be rent — 
Preserve the Union from dismemberment ! 

Oh ! sun, refuse to shine 
Upon the nation wrecked, upon the heap 



46 

Of ruins from the Union strewn. 

Oh ! stars, withhold your beams benign, 

And in eternal darkness weep 

About the sun's forsaken throne, 
If ever falls our country from its bright 
And high career to anarchy and night. 

Nor let the glory from our banner fade, 
Till dies in heaven the sun's last beam ; 

Nor let a single star expire 

Upon its folds, on high displayed, 
Till those in heaven forget to gleam ; 
But coexistent burn their kindred fire. 
And through the dawn of coming years shall rise 
New stars to shine upon our Banner's crown, 
As states, begotten from our empire vast, 
Ascend to places on the Union's skies ; 
Till flings our larger constellation down 
Its beams, more splendid than illumed the past. 
Upon America and o'er the world ; 
And millions, yet unborn, shall see 
Our Banner, more resplendent still, unfurled 
Above a wider realm of liberty. 

This banner was the standard of the brave. 
When first it rose amid the battle's gloom : 

It shaded Washington in death : 
Its folds have drooped o'er many a patriot's grave : 
It floats above the cradle and the tomb 
Of every citizen ; while Freedom's breath 
Still tosses it on many an airy wave. 

Then take this banner ! bear it forth 

Through East and West, through South and North ; 

Let every star be bright. 

And pure the Red and White — 



47 

Through battle storms, on bloody fields ; 
With G-od and Freedom for your shields. 

What though the wild and dismal night 
Of war enshrouds ? behold the light 

That through the darkness streams, 

With unextinguished beams, 
From out the Stars and Stripes : no gloom 
Like this can be the country's tomb. 

These clouds shall pass ; this storm shall cease, 
And leave the shining sun of Peace 
To light our Banner still — • 
If such be Grod's dear will : 
And high our Starry Flag be borne, 
Though in the storm of battle torn : 
No star erased, 
No stripe effaced. 
Its folds in glory ^to be furled 
Above a free and happy world, 
Amid the splendors of the earth's millennial morn. 



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